Sunday 3 January 2010

AFVH9 - Mk1 ARC Heavy Grav Tank (Modified) Enters Service

Today I finished off the first of the Critical Mass Games (CMG) tanks I recently purchased after first seeing it on the excellent Dropship Horizon Blog back in Oct 09. The AFVH9 - Arc Fleet MkI Heavy Grav Tank went together without any problem as such, with just a little excess flash needing sanding off the hull and turret before gluing it all together using Araldite Epoxy Resin. The kit comes with a choice of three main gun options. I opted for the heavier of the three, which looks like it could be a type of Railgun (that's what I intended to use it as anyway).
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Two odd shaped contraptions are meant to be fastened to the back of the turret; I'm assuming they could be grenade launchers or something. Anyway, as soon as I'd glued them on I hated them, so I ripped them off and filled the fixture holes up. I decided to delete the pintle mounted top MG/Heavy Bolter in its entirety and also filled that hole as well, this because I'd decided to upgrade the close support weaponry by fitting a (beefy looking) spare Gatling Gun I had from one of the CMG walkers. Behind it I placed a spare sensor I had in my bits box (from a GZG vehicle). Okay the sensor stops the Gatling Gun from having a 360 degree arc, but it does allows me to claim that the gun can be on either manual or automated response mode.
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Painting wise an initial spray coat of car primer grey started the process off. This was followed with a 90 degree coverage of Coat d'arms 233 Linen, camo lines of GW Catachan Green, and random'ish spots of Foundry 13b Spearshaft. Recessed grills were done in Foundry 34C Charcoal Black. Over all this I gave a wash of GW Devlan Mud, followed by selective highlighting with a GW Rotting Flesh and Foundry 33C White.
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Oppsss, almost forgot to mention that I used 6mm x 1mm rare earth magnets (sourced off E-Bay) so the Gatling Gun gun can rotate, and a couple to keep the turret on the body. IMHO this is a necessity with these vehicles, otherwise with the slightest nudge the turret is off.
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The lighting conditions were interesting for these photos. I took them in the garage with a low winter sun bringing warmth and shadow in its last hour.
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I'm currently chewing on what scheme to paint the MkII tank in....
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5 comments:

Mark said...

Very nicely executed Ian.

Cheers
Mark

Anonymous said...

Have you left the sprue on the back of the turret, or is that something you've built on?

David said...

Anonymous said...
Have you left the sprue on the back of the turret, or is that something you've built on?


Yes, I was wondering that, too. I speculated in the 10th December entry of my modelling log
that the 'M' shaped thing was a casting element and this was confirmed by Craig from CMG. But it still looked pretty good and I was wondering about leaving it on.

Love the look of the tank you've done, BTW, thanks for sharing.

Vulture said...

Guys
Yes I left the sprue on the back of the turret as I wanted this tank to be modified version of the Mk1. I felt the sprue looks like some sort of field or workshop modification that has been fabricated to allow the sensor to be fitted behind the Gatling Gun.

John Bear Ross said...

Vereh Nice!

Best,
JBR